Archaeological Investigations at Yourhaney Plantation (38GE18)

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT YOURHANEY PLANTATION33Washington Elliott died intestate and the property was passed to his heirs: his wife, Sarah and hischildren, Jacob F.; Sarah Jane Forbes, wife of Ben Forbes; Agnes Olivia; Ida E., Arthur Buck,Cathleen, and Eva. The first three children were born to Elliott and his first wife, Agnes AnnWilliams (1848-1873), who died while delivering Agnes Olivia. His second wife, Sarah CharlotteWilliams (1856-1914), was Agnes’ sister and the mother of Elliott’s younger four children (Youngnd). Of his six children, only Jacob and Sarah Jane were adults at the time of his death. Theexecutor was C.P. Quattlebaum, an attorney in Conway. Elliott’s estate appraisal indicates that hehad a sizeable agricultural operation, which included sixty head of cattle, 100 pigs, three horses,four mules, two wagons, a gristmill and boiler engine, and turpentine still. Also in the inventorywas a ferry flat valued at $10.00 (Georgetown County Inventories 1890: Package #102).The estate was involved in a series of judgments and was eventually settled in 1909. The land wasdivided into several parcels amongst his heirs. Some of the heirs sold their portions. CathelineElliott conveyed her parcel to the Mab Lumber Company in 1906. The land containing the ferrysite, however, remained in the estate until the 1950s (Young nd).A wooden bridge over the Pee Dee at Yauhannah was constructed in 1925 and it can be assumedthat the ferry ceased to operate at that point (Rogers 1970: 506). Originally known as State Road40, the road through Yauhannah was included in the federal highway system as U.S. 701 in themid to late 1930s. A 1925 plat shows (Figure 10) the proposed highway bypassing the road tothe ferry. The bridge and its wooden trestles were replaced in the 1950s by three separateconcrete and steel structures.Given the importance of rice to Georgetown County, it is quite likely that the post war collapse ofthe rice crop had an indirect impact on the Yauhannah Bluff area. Many planters in theGeorgetown area had multiple plantations and many probably relied heavily on income brought inby rice from plantations on Waccamaw Neck. The effects of the failed rice economy could haveeasily impacted the amount of capital available for improvements or basic operations at otherplantations. Those planters relying solely on the cotton crop were much better off than their riceplantingneighbors. After the war, the state’s cotton crop exceeded prewar levels by the mid-1870s and by 1940 it more than quintupled pre-war levels. Although this area of the Pee DeeRiver valley never produced as much cotton as areas located in the Piedmont and Inner CoastalPlain, it was still an important staple providing as much as 0.6 bales of cotton per capita (Kovacikand Winberry 1987: 100). The boll weevil spread north and east from Texas and by 1919 hadreached the Georgetown area. By the mid 1920s the damage had reached its peak. However,post war collapse of prices and decreased soil fertility were more damaging to the crop. Cottonprices slowly recovered and farmers learned to manage the boll weevil problem (Kovacik andWinberry 1987: 110-111).Forestry continued to be an important industry after the Civil War. Large sawmills slowly replacedthe many portable mills in pine forests and lumber companies built a number of logging railroadsinto the swamps of the Outer Coastal Plain to take out cypress and swamp hardwoods. SouthCarolina also increased its naval store operations and became an industry leader in 1880.However, it only held the position for a few years when Georgia and Florida overtook the title.Production focused on the Outer Coastal Plain counties from Horry to Colleton. The short-livedcharacter of the industry and competition from lumbering interests for the long leaf pine contributedto the decline of turpentining after the turn of the century (Kovacik and Winberry 1987: 116-117).